Insurtech Kanopi panel delves into embedded insurance

Simon Torrance – founder of Embedded Finance & Super App Strategies;
Luke Boyle – executive general manager, partners and platforms, at IAG;
Matt Connolly – managing partner of Sønr Global; and
Nigel Fellowes-Freeman – founder and CEO of Kanopi.

The panel kicked off the discussion by delving into the influence of changing consumer demands on the insurance supply chain. Specifically, the experts claimed that the COVID-19 pandemic had exacerbated, if not uncovered, an underlying demand within the insurance customer base to explore digital relationships and interactions with their insurers.

According to Torrance, the pandemic pushed consumers to be more aware of risks than before, catalysing the potential interest in mitigation solutions. Additionally, the pandemic created a potential for trust in new types of services from new brands and suppliers.

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“It’s important to work out a strategy for dealing with that [embedded insurance]. What I’ve seen is that it’s going to create net new growth for the industry because it’s going to bring on board new people who are underinsured or uninsured, or the industry cannot reach them. So, my estimates are about $1.4 trillion [to] $1.5 trillion in 10 years’ time in demand from embedded insurance. And net new growth could be another trillion as well. Embedded insurance is not about selling or distributing existing products. It’s about more and better protection that’s baked into the everyday lives of everyone,” Torrance said.

The panel also focused on the “insurance gap” and how embedded insurance could address the overwhelming demand for innovative and adaptive insurance products.

Boyle noted that embedded insurance provides an opportunity to educate customers through leveraging data and insights and delivering information to customers to understand their risks better and make intelligent choices to mitigate those risks frictionlessly.

Commenting on embedded insurance’s impact on customer experience, Fellowes-Freeman said: “Rather than just thinking about the purchase experience, it’s really thinking about what sits underneath that: risk prevention, advice, claim, customer service. I think embedded 2.0 allows that, which maybe the affinity and referral model doesn’t allow. It’s thinking about the entire customer journey over the customer’s lifetime versus just thinking about the acquisition, which I think is how the old affinity and referral models used to work.”